Live Nation Cuts Service Fees In Major Summer Ticket Promotion

June 01, 2009 01:03 AM ET
Ray Waddell, Nashville

Live Nation will eliminate service fees on more than five million lawn tickets and hundreds of concerts for its amphitheaters in a one-day promotion June 3.  The 24 hour sales event is being billed as the biggest ticket promotion ever, which would be hard to dispute.

"No Service Fee Wednesdays," begins June 3 at 12:01 a.m., offering fans some of the lowest prices of the summer with no ticket service fees on any LiveNation.com-ticketed amphitheater show, and only at LiveNation.com. A source at Live Nation says service fees typically average about one third of the total ticket cost.

Throughout the rest of the summer, Live Nation will offer a variety of "No Service Fee Wednesdays" specials at LiveNation.com. This promotion is not valid in combination with other special pricing offers and is subject to availability. Tickets without service fees are available at all Live Nation-ticketed amphitheaters for concerts including blink-182, Coldplay, No Doubt, Nickelback, Depeche Mode, Toby Keith, Brad Paisley, Crue Fest, Def Leppard/Poison/Cheap Trick, Kid Rock/Lynyrd Skynyrd, Phish, Nine Inch Nails/Jane's Addition, the Dead, Rascal Flatts, and many others.

Live Nation has already been tackling the issue of service fees with its in-house ticketing operation launched at the beginning of this year. "We know the fan has been frustrated by the series of successive fees in the purchase process," Live Nation Ticketing CEO Nathan Hubbard tells Billboard.com. "There is attrition in the sales flow once you see your third page with some additional fees. The fan told us they just want to know up front how much the cost of the experience is going to be. We didn’t address that problem completely, but the first step was moving from fan's paying a service fee, you might pay a shipping and handling fee, maybe a print-at-home fee, delivery fee, etc, to consolidating it into a single up-front fee that is there as you cart your inventory."

Hubbard says Live Nation Ticketing has sold more than five million tickets since launching in January.

I would suggest a boycott of that day...just to tell them what they can do w/ those svc charges the rest of the year!!!

Saint Sway wrote on Jun 1^st, 2009 at 9:33am:


Nope..as a matter of fact if most of them played in my back yard...I'd close the curtains.

Thanks for the heads up. I'll login and check it out, some of these venues are cheap to begin with so it might be worth it. Depends on the price, everything has it's price-point, which is why they are doing this promotion ~ people say it's just not worth going, for a high price we say 'no thanks'. It's an incentive.

The last time I bought lawn was in 2003, $10 pairs from "GetAccess" on Ebay. These tickets must be moving especially slow this year. I might want to see at least one Aerosmith show as cheap as possible but I will also have to wait and see what the setlist is going to be.

Last year I was able to get loads of free lawn tickets for all sorts of shows until being notified by Live Nation that the tickets are going to be cancelled unless I could call them back with a promo code. Even my mom's dog was getting concert tickets in the mail last year.

Saint Sway wrote on Jun 2^nd, 2009 at 3:15pm:


Not always. I usually don't think of whatever the selling party paid for them but some of my recent bargain purchases were for obvious comp tickets. In that case, it's win/win, I get in for cheap and the other person has beer money.

Pdog wrote on Jun 2^nd, 2009 at 3:46pm:


Live Nation is also selling loads of discount 4 packs, which really turns the fans into surrogate ticket agents. They buy the 4 tickets for the discount then try to get other people aboard. I was able to get a 4 pack ticket for the Prodigy at the Palladium last week for $10.

Live Nation’s “No Service Fee Wednesday” Puzzles Buyers


Live Nation’s No Service Fee Wednesdays promotion has come under fire after buyers discovered that some tickets purchased today would in fact carry some Parking, Facility or Charity fees, CNN reports. Today’s No Fee promotion was supposed to offer lawn seats to every Live Nation tour without extra add-ons; typical fees tack on an average of $13 per ticket.

Many shows under the promotion’s umbrella include a $6 parking fee per ticket, a cost that is added to every ticket regardless of the buyer’s plans to drive to the venue. “We eliminated all ticket service fees, which in most cases is about a one-third discount, a substantial savings for fans by any measure,” Live Nation spokesperson John Vlautin told Rock Daily, adding that the promotion overall has received positive feedback from consumers. Vlautin, who also said that advance parking fees help alleviate back-ups at venues (where money is collected by hand), said Live Nation receives the parking fees from concerts at their own venues.

The parking charge puzzled some Live Nation customers today, but Blink-182 fans purchasing tickets to the band’s summer reunion tour faced some seriously confounding options. When Blink-182 announced the trek, the band and Live Nation revealed that lawn tickets would only cost $20. However, when tickets went on sale this past weekend, fans purchasing tix to certain shows encountered an option to buy $20 Lawn tickets or $7.75 Lawn Special tickets — Live Nation did not specify any differences between the options, like whether Lawn Special was obstructed or farther from the stage. As a result, some fans purchased the previously advertised $20 Lawn seats, only to discover that those tickets carried an additional $15 in service fees.

In actuality, Lawn and Lawn Special were the same thing, and it was the $7.75 ticket — after service fees — that was the $20 ticket. According to Vlautin, both options were listed so fans wouldn’t think the lawn seats were entirely sold out if the $20 tickets got snatched up quickly. Vlautin recommends that anybody who accidentally purchased the $20 plus fees Lawn tickets instead of the actual Lawn Special “all-in” tickets should contact Customer Service.

No Fee Wednesday tickets are being sold for the Blink shows as well. At some venues, like West Palm Beach, Florida’s Cruzan Amphitheatre, these No Fee tickets come out to $26 after the $6 parking charge, which is still more than the $7.75 “all-in” ticket price of $20 after fees. In short, Blink tickets are more expensive through the No Fee promotion — which is being heavily featured on the Live Nation Blink tour page — than they are at the regular “all-in” price. Vlautin encourages buyers to compare the ticketing options and prices before purchasing lawn seats.

Vlautin also told Rock Daily that this week only marks the first of a summer-long promotion of No Service Fee Wednesdays, with each subsequent week spotlighting a certain venue, tour or artist whose fans will benefit from no service charges.

http://www.rollingstone.com/rockdaily/index.php/2009/06/03/live-nations-no-servi...

Lazy Bones wrote on Jun 4^th, 2009 at 10:21am:


They should change their name from LiveNation to Bait And Switch

" ...  was able to get a 4 pack ticket for the Prodigy at the Palladium last week for $10.  "



!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

the mighty Aerosmith going for under $30 in 4-pack for Lawn ...